Society Is More Violent Than Any Revolution

This is good -- though I don't know if we really need to discuss "justified violence" if most arguments against "violence" are your basic cherry-picking. I think it's better to view pacificsm as a form of utopian dreaming; the concentrated wish for a better society from within the bowels of society-as-it-is.

Revolution Or Extinction. The Choice Is Ours.

This is Caitlin Johnstone. i wish there had been a shout-out to Rosa Luxemburg in this piece; Rosa was a grand theorist in her own right who famously said "socialism or barbarism." Rosa's idea of barbarism, moreover, was World War I, so reminiscent of the current war in the Donbas.

‘We Are the Children of the Algerians You Didn’t Drown’

Things really need to develop rapidly in France than they've developed so far if the current uprisings are to amount to anything at all. Here, Michel Feher argues that "I don’t view these uprisings as a sign of some general pre-revolutionary stage, exciting as they are, but hopefully as a prelude to a reopening of the left imaginary." And the Yellow Vest movement was hopefully a prelude to the prelude to a reopening of the left imaginary? That's some pretty thin hope you've got there.

Is France nearing a revolutionary situation?

Here Charlie Kimber argues: "A pre-revolutionary situation does not imply a smooth or inevitable path to revolution. It is about possibilities, structures and openings. Further development hinges on leadership that goes beyond one-day events and puts in place a systematic escalation of the fight that embraces the whole social crisis."

Revolution does not, however, mean (in itself) an escalation of any fight, though escalation and fights might accompany a revolution. What needs to change is the institutional imaginary; the masses need to rethink institutional life, and doing this must involve acts of institutional creation. This is why dual power was important to the three Russian Revolutions. Here in the US the primary destructive power is the Federal government, as the initial revolution will only occur when even the Kool-Aid drinkers, the people who are not yet pissed off enough to (at the very least) demand better from the entire political class, are either dead or fully awake.

Theory -- in this regard -- is not a series of preludes to hero-worship, but rather a stimulus to further thought, much in the same way in which going to school and attending classes might get you to think about stuff. Sure, we can nod up and down and say "sure -- revolution or extinction," but that wouldn't be further thought. There needs to be something more. So everyone please keep reading, because right now a revolution would be far more useful to us than a lot of other things we might do.

with the minor exception of not actually being able to drink coffee (hate the taste, and my cardiologist would kill me anyway):

Oh, and one more, my current favorite among all the Cheesecake Factory memes: